Rail was repaired in the baltic zone at a rate of 10 hexes per turn. (Pskov) Rail was repaired in nonbaltic zone at a rate a little better than 5 hexes per turn. (Luga) Rail was repaired to Staraya at a rate of 1 hex per turn, in-game this may equate to the lack of a FBD unit on this line.

Possibly the current rate of rail repair is an underestimate? Some other interesting quotes from the article,

"German rail conversion efforts were completed relatively quickly. In many cases, the Germans only had to remove one of the rails and move it closer in"

"and while the conversion of the Soviet wide gauge lines to standard gauge proceeded relatively effortlessly"

"Because the Germans had advanced very rapidly into Lithuania and Latvia and because they were able to capture about 30 serviceable wide-gauge locomotives and close to 300 railroad wagons in eastern Latvia and a slightly lesser number of serviceable wide-gauge locomotives and wagons in Tallinn, Estonia - the Germans elected to temporarily use the available wide gauge equipment to shuttle German troops and supplies from eastern Latvia and Estonia (as well as from the ports of Riga, Paldiski and Tallinn) to the front lines of HGrN"

Here is some information that may be of interest,

"One of the first actions taken by the German Transportation Division to prepare itself for the upcoming war with the Soviet Union was to complete a preliminary analysis of the Soviet rail network. This effort highlighted the following - only four major east-west running trunk lines connected the western border regions of the Soviet Union (including the recently annexed regions of Poland and the Baltic States of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania) with Soviet rear areas:

Niemen river to Leningrad (double track) Bug river to Orsha to Moscow (double track) Bug river to Kremenchug to the Donets basin (double track) San river to Odessa (double track)

The four above named trunk-lines were intersected by only six major north-south running trunk lines:

Koeningsberg to Kremenchug (double track) Riga to Orsha to Kharkov to the Donets basin (double track) Odessa to Orsha to Leningrad (double track) Sevastopol to Kharkov to Moscow to Archanglesk (double track) Leningrad to Moscow to the Donets to the Caucasus (double track) Leningrad to Moscow to the Caucasus (double track)"

It is an interesting article but doesn't cover all the issue of rail transportation in that the German's faced in the USSR:

1)For example, the German railroad workers remained working under their civilian contract even after the start of the invasion. As such, they literally took two weeks off in December for Christmas, virtually shutting down rail transportation/repair work on the Eastern front during this time.

2) Except in the Baltic States, where I don't have much information, the wide gauge use created a large number of engineering challenges to the Germans:

a) the rail bed did not need the stone/dedicated build up like the rest of Europe. The wide gauge, combined with the wider cars and wooden floors, didn't carry as much load and spread it out over a wider area within the cars. This resulted in the cars (and engines)not exerting the pounds per square inch on the track and track bed that the Western European trains did.

b) USSR rails were made of the sale quality of iron or steel as Western European rails and would buckle under European train weights.

c) And refueling/watering did require more stations to be build, even in shorter distances. On average, a Russian train required a water station every three water stops every 200 miles or so, a European train four.

d) The stamped metal bridges in Russia were simply not capable of taking the weight of many European trains - or at least, not for very long. And you literally couldn't just "move the rails" on these bridges. They were built into the bridges. And hundreds of bridges are simply not shown on the map due to smaller streams and rivers not being shown.

3) Russian signaling equipment was primitive - more primitive that most of us can imagine. They made up for it in manpower. It worked fine unless a train needed to "course correct" while underway or between stops. Then it failed miserably.

4) Virtually all transportation modes except water bulk out before weighting out. What does this mean? It means, for trains, the cars fill up before the weight limit is reached. So the broad gauge Russian cars ended up being more efficient in same ways than the European cars. Where they had issues centered on the floor. Due to material shortages, Russian rail cars were totally made of wood except for the bracing and wheels - and that included wooden floors. So if the carried really heavy things like artillery shells, they couldn't carry as much as a Western European car. If they carried people (troops) they could carry more. Flatcars, on both sides, had metal floors.

5) A double line, as a note, is four times as efficient as a single line if that line includes bridges and side rails for both lines and usually takes 11/2 times as long to build as a single line.

So, it is not as easy and just moving the rail lines and regauging to get the lines moving forward (although in the Baltic, it may be easier than that).

Just FYI, we read that article prior to finalizing all our rules pre-release. It was very helpful. Keep in mind that the game system is simpler than real life so there's always some give and take when working out how things should work. The article helped justify the Baltic Rail Repair zone rules.

Hi Pelton As regards Play Balance, The current low rail repair rate(RRR) means that as the Axis advances far past their rail heads supply is limited. The Soviet players best option then is to fall back and consolidate as the low RRR garentees he will only face undersupplied Axis units in depth.

Changing the Rail repair rate from 6 and 3 to say 10 and 5 would result in the Soviet player facing stronger Axis units if he decides to retreat and make a stand deep in Mother Russia. So hopefully giving the Axis historical RRR means the Soviet player would be better served using his units to fight the Germans and delay them as best he could. This means that when the germans do arrive in depth rather than being supply starved they are fought out instead. and the Soviets havn't as many units.

So rather than hoarding all his units and relying on the supply rules to cripple the Axis, the Soviet player is forced to feed units into the German meat grinder from the start in a series of desperate rearguard actions. Soviet would have to trade his starting units for time.

If this change poses a play balance problem (a Soviet fighting forward delay stratergy doesnt compensate) maybe downgrade some of the German first move bonus rules. (I realise it is in no way easy to adjust play balance)

Underestimating the Axis RRR acts as a sort of selfulfilling prophecy Currently the soviet only best option is to retreat, improving german RRR would make this a riskier proposition. It would also give the Soviet player a second option to mass withdrawal, FIGHT!

For the Axis rather than hitting a brick wall deep in Russia They are climbing an ever increasing slope.

So hopefully giving the Axis historical RRR means the Soviet player would be better served using his units to fight the Germans and delay them as best he could.

The Soviets have to fall back, as under good supply the Germans can drive forward faster than they can march backwards. If you make the German supply situation better, fighting forward is just going to mean even more pockets for the Axis, which would not be to the Soviet's advantage. Soviets have to trade space for time because the initial weeks of the war see the destruction of much of their army and it takes time to get counters back on the map sufficient to build a defensive line. The best Soviet players do engage in a fighting withdrawal, but if they try to stand toe-to-toe a good Axis player will create vast pockets with good supply.

Hi Pelton As regards Play Balance, The current low rail repair rate(RRR) means that as the Axis advances far past their rail heads supply is limited. The Soviet players best option then is to fall back and consolidate as the low RRR garentees he will only face undersupplied Axis units in depth.

Changing the Rail repair rate from 6 and 3 to say 10 and 5 would result in the Soviet player facing stronger Axis units if he decides to retreat and make a stand deep in Mother Russia. So hopefully giving the Axis historical RRR means the Soviet player would be better served using his units to fight the Germans and delay them as best he could. This means that when the germans do arrive in depth rather than being supply starved they are fought out instead. and the Soviets havn't as many units.

So rather than hoarding all his units and relying on the supply rules to cripple the Axis, the Soviet player is forced to feed units into the German meat grinder from the start in a series of desperate rearguard actions. Soviet would have to trade his starting units for time.

If this change poses a play balance problem (a Soviet fighting forward delay stratergy doesnt compensate) maybe downgrade some of the German first move bonus rules. (I realise it is in no way easy to adjust play balance)

Underestimating the Axis RRR acts as a sort of selfulfilling prophecy Currently the soviet only best option is to retreat, improving german RRR would make this a riskier proposition. It would also give the Soviet player a second option to mass withdrawal, FIGHT!

For the Axis rather than hitting a brick wall deep in Russia They are climbing an ever increasing slope.

Best Regards Chuck

RR has been nerfed many months back to the current rule set, because for crazy GHC players like myself the game was simply to easy. Being in Moscow turn 12 or Stalingrad turn 16 was not that big of a deal.

Semi is semi right. If you ignore MT's games everyone esle that plays SHC can easly hold Moscow. Which puts the game along a historical time lines. Most game SHC players can fight forward Tula north and withdraw in south and be fine.

For sure I am a GHC fanboy, but the current RR ruleset is fair .

It is the best for the game and really has been tested by the player base of over a yr.

IF you put it to what you wanted then, historically SHC would need the 200ish divisions that are not on the battle field.

If I disagree with 2by3 I blow my horn as you should know, but in this case they are spot on.

ORIGINAL: chuckles Changing the Rail repair rate from 6 and 3 to say 10 and 5 would result in the Soviet player facing stronger Axis units if he decides to retreat and make a stand deep in Mother Russia. So hopefully giving the Axis historical RRR means the Soviet player would be better served using his units to fight the Germans and delay them as best he could.

Making the Axis supply better makes them more mobile and results in more pockets, which simply forces the Russians to retreat faster.

That, and there isn't really a need to give the Axis more supply. The game engine needs some changes, in fact it needs a reduction of logistical capabilities for both sides, but not an increase. The historical reality was still that the German advance largely came to a halt due to weak logistics, and the summer advances were continuously restricted due to the same. You could make RR faster, but you'd need to cut overall supply significantly, so you're not really any further ahead.

There's more involved with rail repair than simply it's furthest extent. Capacity of the line, amount of rolling stock available, timetables (trains don't just go into Russia, they need to come back also), etc. Much of this is being worked on in WitW, and will likely be used to update WitE.

The historical reality was still that the German advance largely came to a halt due to weak logistics

I think this is a myth that has been perpetrated by games that hitherto did not have the sophisticated logistics model that is in WITE. Prior to the computer age, East Front games had a binary supply line that the Soviets retreated behind and continued to retreat so that German units would always be OOS at the instant of combat.

My reading in the past couple of years indicates that vigorous Soviet defense and counterattack stopped the German attack. At Smolensk, the Panzer formations were fatigued and very short of tanks and motorized infantry (Glantz). At Lenningrad, AGN simply did not have enough oomph to overcome that Soviet resistance - a lack that is usually corrected by WITE players who massively reinforce AGN with infantry, support units and panzers.

I am not defending the logistics system in its totality - I am finishing a PBEM Typhoon scenario and will eventually analyze the results. My gut feel is the Germans are not run down enough by the time the blizzard starts. But I think it is very good and players will argue endlessly about which side is appropriately constrained by logistics and when.

Would this be enough to compensate for increasing RR values to historical levels? and so leave play balance unchanged?

If It was enough then I would say two 'unhistoric'('June 22 surprise Rule' and low RR) aspects of the game would be removed and a closer approximation of the real event would be arrived at.

The German 'June 22 surprise Rule' doesnt make sense to me. I think that German attacks were no less vigourous or differently executed on the second week compared to the first. And I suspect German advances into enemy territory did not became more timid in the second compared to the first week of the campaign.

I do think though that there is however a good argument for a different Soviet performance between the first to second week(As currently Modeled). (I seem to remember reading in 'Hitler Moves East' Soviet troops being treated to the scene of officers comandeering the nearest vehicles and heading east young man.)

IMHO the German 'June 22 surprise Rule' is a "gamey" rule possibly used to adjust play balance. But the Russian limitations probably OK.

What say you, am I on the right track? would the two changes cancel each other out?

The first turn surprise rule simulates the fact that, other than the Southwestern Front, the Soviets were NOT prepared or on alert for possible combat. The rule also allows AGN and AGC to reach the historic penetrations that occurred during that 'turn'.

Completely Remove the German 'June 22 surprise Rule' (ie attack costs -not- halved and -normal- costs for moving into Enemy hexes). Would this be enough to compensate for increasing RR values to historical levels? and so leave play balance unchanged?

Do that and the German player can't reach as far as the Germans DID in the first few days of the war. To then try and make up for that by piling advantages on them for the remaining weeks of the '41 campaign doesn't strike me as balanced.

About the "surprise" rule. Agree it seems"gamey," but circumstances 6/41 did not repeat afterwards, e.g., great surprise, near perfect offensive preparation, disastrous defensive readiness, and great differences in C&C for both sides. Seems AGN, AGC, AGS reflect history to some degree. Why not let the coders find a simple solution in the interest of a common "least tricked" game engine?

As for FBDs & NKPSs capability, that is worth some study, as a part of overall logistics. Trust V2.0 is addressing this.

Hi carlkay and Seminole, Seminole I am not "piling advantages", I am wondering if the RRrate could be rendered historically accurate.

It seems you have both missed something, Nearly all the German Armoured units have a Morale of 90 so it only costs them 1 MP to move in ememy territory on any move, they dont need the "Entering an enemy hex costs only 1 MP" rule at all.

So Removing the "June 22 1941 Surprise Rule:" rule does -not- mean the historic penetrations cannot be achieved, they can.

However the bulk of the German infantry will need 2 MP to advance into each enemy hex leaving those panzers in depth a little more exposed and vulnerable. And more importantly making it a little easier for the soviets to resist forward.

At Morale of 45 the FBD need 4 MP to move into each hex (So to keep to the historical timetable these units may need even higher MP than I originally suggested or better Morale.)

You are right carlkay the first week is about " Soviets were NOT prepared " ie Soviet values need to be adjusted not German.

"Great surprise " Im not so sure about, did the soviets really not notice the buildup? What does surprise mean? where they out of position? did they have no ammo?, fuel? where they in shock? surely they were trained for this. Does it mean that the Germans took half as long to conduct an assault than normally? I dont think so.

Kursk I would say also had near perfect preperation, it certainly took long enough. Great differences in C&C well that should be reflected in the C&C values, not is a special rule.

My point is, when you really think about it, its just another offensive.

Which leaves one point, disasterous defensive readiness,

What would you think about removing the Soviet Zones of Control to reflect this? Would that balance the German infantries increase to 2 MPs? or would tampering with ZOC be unnecessary?

The historical reality was still that the German advance largely came to a halt due to weak logistics

My gut feel is the Germans are not run down enough by the time the blizzard starts. But I think it is very good and players will argue endlessly about which side is appropriately constrained by logistics and when.

Most games the Germans and Russians are not run down, because of player game tactics and nothing more. Currently SHC runs and GHC marchs forward, which as you kow is not historical.

I have played a game vs TDV where GHC had 3 million by blizzard and SHC 3.8 million, SHC easly took it to GHC during blizzard.

Your kinda new to it all, fixing one thing has a snowball effect on both sides. Even small tweaks can have a huge effect after 100 turns+

Historical and HvH have a little relation in many cases. SHC are not going to waste troops on insane attacks and GHC are not going to fall into the Stalingrad trap.

Great surprise? Whoever knew the Axis were coming sure didn't act on their insights. Papa Joe surely had something to do with that. The effects of this "surprise" I expect were felt in readiness, supply, tactical response, etc. Admit my term "great" is moot.

Kursk doesn't, IMO, compare to Barbarossa, because everyone had their eyes open. Surprise here is that Axis did not understand how well prepared SOV was, or, how effective SOV had become. Could write books on that. Surely, Hitler had something to do with that.

As far as guessing what code changes might help, that's over my paygrade. For me, its the journey that's enjoyed.

The problem with the example you gave is that it had some extremes labeled into the data. Yes, the Baltic states used the same rail gauge as Germany (and the rest of Western Europe) did so the repairs on the Baltic rail lines were strictly repairs. So the 10 hex repair in one week was located in a portion of the Baltic states that there was no fighting over, minimal damage to the rail lines and the rolling stock, and was easily put back into service.

Your next example was the repair towards Luga and you pegged it at 5 hexes per turn. Currently standard rail repair behind the front lines is about 4 hexes/turn. Not too far off - but you did lose a hex/turn. Once again, though, you chose a portion of rail line that was not really fought over and behind the front lines so the repair was quickly done.

Then you chose an area where there was heavy fighting (and there actually was not a major rail repair effort) and noted that the one hex per turn was right.

Currently in the game you can build a rail line to Smolensk (assuming the enemy has been pushed out of the way faster than the rail is repaired so it does not slow down the rail repair) two weeks before it reached there historically. The same is true in the south where the rail to the city to the south of Kiev on the Dnepr (I can't recall its name at the moment) will reach a little over one week before historical. In both cases it could be argued that historically some Soviets held out long enough to slow down the rail repair and so the historical speed matches the game speed.

The only possible area of complaint for the Axis is that there really should be another FBD unit in AGS. But the argument could easily be made that it was never really organized and utilized as such but was a shell command unit. I remember the debates over the unit (which starts just south of the Pripet Marshes) and its existence from the Europa eastern games. It was never successfully concluded either way, although by mid-July the reports from the unit disappear and it seems to have taken over an administrative and support role for the trains operating in the AGC area.

So, yes there are times that rail repair historically was faster than the in-game possibilities, but over the course of five to ten turns it comes out about right.

There are still bugs in the RR as MT knows. You can still get 5 hexes in a turn on some lines in different areas. You cant get 5 per turn, but on some lines there are areas where you can get 4/5/4/4/5 ect ect.

Hitman has a way he uses Corp HQ to link up areas which also could be used to bump up the RR from my example of 4/5/4/4/5 to 5/6/5/5/6

Not sure Hitman looked at doing that but dont see why thats not possible.

In WITE Rail repair is more than just repairing the rails. There's a huge difference between having regauged the lines so that you can actually roll some trains on them and having a fully functionnal rail network.

In WITE there is nothing between unrepaired rails and fully functional network.

so yes rails should be repaired faster, but it should take longer to get your network working.

The real bottleneck should not be the troops advancing faster than the railhead, but the quantity of supply and equipment that reach the troops, as the number of trains available and the capacity of the lines become unsufficient to sustain the advance.

This part is not modelled so far, everything being abstracted into the rail repair system. So there's certainly room for improvement but it means an in-depth reworking of the whole logistical system which i think is underway for witw. Which will also mean a lot of testing and probably a couple of years of gameplay to get a proper balance

Hi carlKay Just a point, I didnt choose the examples, they are the only ones in the article! Yes I think you are right, about RR being about right in Russia already, but the baltic is I think still a problem. I would like to make a couple of points,

I think damage to baltic or Russian Rolling stock isnt to much of a problem the Germans had a fair bit of it I guess, and I think actually even if a battle does Roll down a Railway line certainly the Track is pretty hard to damage and I guess coaling stations water towers etc can be repaired.

Lithuania, Latvia and less so Estonia (the baltic) are basically germanised countries, for instance the Teutonic knights came out of Riga. Also I dont think they were very impresed by the Russians short occupation before Poland was invaded.

So....

What I think is different in the Baltic is not less battle damage but the Population pretty much cooperated as much as possible, in this case, esp the Rail guys. That I think is why the germans made 10 hexes in a week, everyone was helping rather than shooting at them. This I think definitely isnt reflected in the Game.

I still think though that giving the baltic 10 and soviet 5 hexes RR rate would be Ok playbalance wise if the German "June 22 1941 Surprise Rule: " were dropped in compensation. Plus, both changes combine to make it more sensible for the Russian to defend rather than retreat. Giving a better play experience for both sides really.

I still think though that giving the baltic 10 and soviet 5 hexes RR rate would be Ok playbalance wise if the German "June 22 1941 Surprise Rule: " were dropped in compensation. Plus, both changes combine to make it more sensible for the Russian to defend rather than retreat. Giving a better play experience for both sides really.

Again, giving the Germans better supply is going to make it harder for the Soviets to defend forward (as better supplied Germans will have higher CV and more MP to better create pockets), it won't make it more 'sensible'. It will achieve the opposite. If you take away the 'surprise' rules as they exist in the first turn the German player cannot achieve the same milestones that the Germans did in the opening days of the war. Not all Axis units have morale 85+. The surprise rule in essence tries to recreate the Russian paralysis at the opening of the war. Stalin specifically forbid many mobilization aspects because he was concerned that the western nations where trying to gin up a war between the Nazis and Soviets and he wanted to avoid provocation.

Yes 'better supply' or RRrate lets say, does make it harder for the soviets to defend forward. Removing the "June 22 1941 Surprise Rule" will make it easier for the Soviets to defend forward. I am hoping with respect to play balance the two will cancell out.

Easier for the Soviets to defend forward because;

German Infantry wont get as far forward on the first move.

So the Panzer units need to work largely without their support (to achieve milestones) Operating in Isolation so far forward makes them more vulnerable to counterattack and being temporarily isolated. The Soviet has a better oportunity to "throw a spanner into the works" This will inevitably cost them units, but will wear out the panzers.

The german spring rule is meant to model "Surprise", not the Soviet paralysis. The Russian first move movement restrictions model Soviet "paralysis or mobilization aspects".

By my reckoning each of the four panzergroups has enough 90 morale (movement uaffected by spring rule removal) units to get two where they got too in the first week. Daugavpils and minsk for example.

So, when you say "cannot achieve the milestones"? could you be a bit more specific, maybe which unit cant get where?